Wine[1] is an application that allows you to create a Windows environment for installing Windows software. This can be useful if your favorite Windows game or productivity application has not been ported to Linux or BSD.

Wine is not guaranteed to work with every Windows application.

Figure 9.6b: Wine Configuration Menu

If you are unsure if the application that you require is supported, search for it in the "Browse Apps" section of the Wine Application Database[2]. The Wine Wiki[3] contains many resources to get you started and to refer to if you encounter problems with your Windows application.

Installing and Using Wine

Wine can be installed from AppCafe®. In Figure 9.6a, the user has performed a search to find the Wine PBI. You should install the version that is correct for your architecture (32-bit or 64-bit).

Figure 9.6a: Installing Wine from AppCafe®

Once installed, an icon for Wine Configuration will be added to the Control Panel and, depending upon your desktop, a desktop icon may be created as well. Double-clicking the icon will load the Wine configuration menu shown in Figure 9.6b. You can also start this program by typing winecfg at the command line.

Click the "Add application" button to browse to the application's installer file. By default, the contents of your hard drive will be listed under "drive_c". If the installer is on a CD/DVD, use the drop-down menu to browse to your home directory ➜ .wine ➜ dosdevices folder. The contents of the CD/DVD should be listed under d:. If they are not, the most likely reason is that your CD/DVD was not automatically mounted by the desktop. To mount the media, type the following as the superuser:

mount -t cd9660 /dev/cd0 /cdrom

You should hear the media spin and be able to select the installer file. Once selected, press "Apply" then "OK" to exit the configuration utility.

To install the application, click the Winefile desktop icon or type winefile to see the screen shown in Figure 9.6c:

Figure 9.6c: Installing the Application Using winefile

Click the button representing the drive containing the installer (in this example, D:\) and double click on the installation file (e.g. setup.exe). The installer should launch and you can proceed to install the application as you would on a Windows system.

If you had to manually mount the CD/DVD, you will need to unmount it before it will eject. As the superuser, use the command umount /mnt in an xterm.

Once the installation is complete, browse to C:\ and find the application's location. Figure 9.6d shows an example of running Internet Explorer within winefile.

Figure 9.6d: Running the Installed Application

Using Swine

This is a helpful configuration application available from AppCafe®.
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